New Expedition ahead of ACH Volley

SPORTS, 05 Nov 2010
/ By Miha Granfola

The last of the most popular club competitions in Europe begins in November. Slovenes will be able to cheer for their ACH Volley in the most prestigious volleyball club competition – the CEV Champions League.

Ljubljana is once again filled with elite sports events After Krim, who are successfully competing in the women’s handball Champions League and Union Olimpija, who started the basketball Euroleague with a magical win over Efes Pilsen, ACH Volley will be the third team to host famous European opponents in Stožice Hall.

ACH Volley is starting a new season on the wings of last year’s sensational result, when they qualified for the Champions League Final 4, and finished 4th in Europe – a great result, but hard to repeat.

The team have sustained a few important changes in its roster. First of all, a new head coach was assigned. ACH Volley’s legendary Glenn Hoag accepted a new challenge of coaching the national team of Canada; his place was taken by Montenegrian Igor Kolaković, also the head coach of the Serbian national team, which finished 3rd in this year’s World Championship.

Together with Kolaković, three players from the Serbian national team signed to ACH Volley. Vlado Petković came as a substitute for his older brother Veljko Petković, who moved to Budvanska Rivijera. Milan Rašić also played for Serbia in the World Championship, while Uroš Kovačević, at the age of 17, is recognized as one of the world’s biggest talents. Also newly signed is 215 cm-tall Dutch national team player, Kay Van Dijk. Together with the players from last year’s roster, the team will try to finish first in the group stage of the CEV Champions League, which would mean that they could be candidates for the Final 4 in Ljubljana this year. Their contenders for the first place in Group C are prominent teams from Montenegro – Budvanska Rivijera, Greece – Olympiacos and from Poland – Jastrzebski, who will attract crowds to fill Stožice Hall with 12,000 volleyball fans.